Hundreds of firefighters - backed up by 11 aircraft - battled a third wildfire in the Los Angeles area Friday as two more raged within 60 miles of one another.
The latest - known as the Crown Fire - has ignited more than 5,000 acres, fire officials said. The other two have blackened more than 17,000 acres.
About 500 firefighters were at the scene of the Crown Fire on Friday. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department said mandatory evacuation orders from overnight had been lifted, but a voluntary evacuation remained in effect. Residents should be ready to evacuate at any time, and follow instructions of deputies, the department said. Areas affected included some parts of Leona Valley, Ritter Ranch, Anaverde and Palmdale in northern Los Angeles County.
Four heavy tankers, one DC-10 and six helicopters will be making drops of fire retardant Friday, according to Michael Bryant, incident commander for the L.A. County Fire Department. The DC-10 made its first drop at 7:48 a.m. as officials briefed reporters in Leona Valley. Bryant said the aircraft can drop between 1,000 and 2,200 gallons of liquid at a time.
The priority Friday, Bryant said, was preventing the Crown Fire from destroying power lines that provide electricity throughout Southern California. The lines are very near the fire.
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It is important to note that this could be a case of arson. The illegal immigrants are committing crimes such as shooting at cops and detectives and setting fires in parks to terrorize the US and to get at our government. I am concerned about our area of Gaithersburg, Maryland being affected by crime. We already had people come here in stolen cars and school busses and we arrested them and put them in jail recently. They will be extradited to the area to account for their crimes.
Why would you make a point of singling out illegal immigrants as the first suspects in arson? While your examples of situations in which illegal immigrants further broke the law may be relevant to a discussion on immigration policy, the knee-jerk association of crime to illegal immigrants is unfounded and insulting. The subtle dehumanizing of a people seeking a better life by those who inherited it in this country is embarrassing to me as an American.
Congruent to this in principal is the case of Lee Malvo, John Muhammad and Thomas Sweatt. The trio were good friends of each other and hung out in places. They did several shootings and they set fires in various places such as schools and shopping centers and they terrorized the Montgomery County and P.G. County, Maryland and Washington, D.C. areas. They were on the streets and traveled to different states committing crimes. They kidnapped people and stole cars and tried to sell for ransom but changed their strategies when neighbors complained. Our department is concerned that Malvo from the Red Onion State Pen will contact Sweatt at the pen in Florence, Colorado to duscuss breaking out of prison and to kill all law enforcement and to ask al-qaeda to blow up the US so they can highjack a plane for Cuba. That is what our department is quite concerned about with this new recent article on Malvo with some celebrity. I am amazed on this but our eyes and ears are open to new possibilities. I thoght this case was over and done but think again!
My wife and I were just reading the USA Today paper and it said that this could be a case of arson and that crimes such as this are becoming more prevalent due to the bad economy and the illegal immigrants scaling the fences in the southwest. We still have a number of mixed questions and few answers at this time.
Excellent website by Camie Gural